Hal.dll

Does anyone know how to access the setup optionsof WinXP when using an OEM recovery CD?My laptop is a HiGrade M6400, and came with the APIC HAL installed. Using the recovery only loads the standard HAL.dll, and HiGrade's tech support deny that any of their products even have APIC motherboards.(The bios has a disable APIC option, and the machine arrived with 24 IRQs). Also, if anyone has one of these machines, are there any workarounds for BT Voyager ADSL modems failing to initialize?Cheers.

Thanks for replying!I believe that, with a regular install of XP, you have to hit F5 at the 'Press F6 to install 3rd party RAID or SCSI drivers' to choose a non-standard HAL (in this case halaacpi.dll). As the tech support agent didn't know what HAL was, I assume this should be accomodated for in the ghost. As it obviously wasn't, I hoped there was a way of overwriting the standard HAL during the install. Higrade are sending a new recovery disc, but since they deny the existence of APIC on their systems,and have said that that the disc is standard, I doubt this will help.

I have bought a self powered USB hub already, and the problem remains the same, the modem power light goes on, but the system does not detect it! This works fine on an Acer Travelmate 508DX. Higrade are sending a new recovery disc, but since they deny the existance of APIC on their systems,and have said that that the disc is standard, I doubt this will help.

I did complain about the service, but received a cheeky reply suggesting that I was wasting their time by giving the wrong information. The Customer Services Manager replied to tell me I was all mixed up, and I was actually talking about ACPI, not APIC. However, I managed to figure out that there where two ways to run a recovery, and the second way loaded the correct hal, and my machine works perfectly now. Which is strange, as the manufacturer stills claims this is not possible.Also, I was advised that there was no way that the USB ADSL modem would work, however, disabling USB DOS emulation in the BIOS remedies this problem. Tech support also claim that ghost devices in safe mode are perfectly acceptable, and cause no impedance on system performance. Any opinions on this?